He leaned over and kissed her. A car behind them honked when the light changed to green.
He laughed as he sat up and drove. “Of course, technically we have known each other for a couple of years, but you know what I mean.”
She knew. And the fact that it felt so right and natural falling asleep between the two men made her never want to return to Ohio.
But how would she explain them to her parents?
When Liam arrived, she was relieved to see he was using his cane and not his wheelchair. She hugged him, and he stuck his hand out to Tim. “You must be Tim. Nice to finally get to meet you.”
Tim smiled. “Likewise.” Tim immediately reached out to take Liam’s carry-on bag from Gwen, who’d wrestled it away from Liam as soon as she could. “Did you check anything?”
“Yeah, a bag and my wheelchair.” He looked at Gwen. “Bob is sooo going to kill me.” He grinned mischievously. “Ruthie is totally addicted to World of Warcraft now. And she’s damn good at it, too. I left her with my backup laptop, and she’s happily making online friends as she goes on campaigns to kill things.”
“Where is she? Did she go home?”
“Nope. I left her holding down the fort at your house. Bob’s still out of town anyway, and she’s going to help fend off Mom and Dad for a couple of days.”
Gwen felt guilty over that. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Honey, believe me, she’s fine. She looks happier than I’ve seen her in years.” He snickered. “When you can get her away from the computer.”
They made their way to baggage claim. Tim wouldn’t let Liam carry anything, and had them wait outside the terminal so he could bring the car around. When he left to go get it, Liam slung his arm around Gwen as they sat on a bench and snugged her close.
“Wubs you, sis.”
She smiled. “Wubs you too, bro.”
“So, how is he in the sack?” He grinned. “Or should I say, ‘they?’”
She nearly choked. “What?”
“Oh, please. I saw the way he was looking at you.” He laughed and touched the back of her neck. “And that hickey didn’t get there by itself.”
She clapped her hand over her neck. “I’m…I’m…”
He pulled her close again and kissed the top of her head. “You’re in heaven. You also look happier than I’ve seen you in years. Ruthie’s not the only one who’s experienced a massive paradigm shift in the last twenty-four hours. Am I right?”
She felt her face heat. No doubt her cheeks were bloodred. She nodded. There was no reason to deny it or lie about it. Not to Liam.
“Okay, then. Nothing to be ashamed of.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “You’ve been writing about it for years. Time for you to experience a little happily-ever-after in real life, you know.”
She hugged him tighter as she burst into tears. “You’re the best brother ever.”
He laughed. “I’m your only brother, sweetie.” He sighed. “You and me against the world.”
“Yep. You and me.”
Gwen let Liam sit in the front seat. The men talked as they drove back to Tim’s house. After Liam was settled in the other guest room and had a chance to freshen up, the three of them gathered around the kitchen table with the notebook and Liam’s laptop and went over what Gwen and Tim had found out.
“But nothing’s showing up on her cell phone?” Tim asked.
Liam shook his head. “Nope. I’m guessing she’s using the prepaid phone.”
“Sure seems like she’s hiding something,” Tim said.
Gwen nodded. “Yep. But why? She’s told Liam and me about boyfriends before.”
Liam snorted. “I bet he’s married.”
“Really? You think so?”
“I’d put money on it. Which is weird because you know what? That would so not be like the Amy you and I know. Our responsible older sister has more secrets than we can guess, I would imagine.”
Gwen didn’t want to think that about her sister, but she couldn’t deny it made sense. Having been cheated on herself, she didn’t want to believe her sister would do the same thing to some other poor, unsuspecting wife. “Let’s just focus on finding her and making sure she’s okay before we start making suppositions as to the why. Maybe she had a great horndog holiday and the thought of returning to the same house as our parents has her shitting her pants.”
“Okay,” Tim said, “are your parents really that bad that she’d do something as drastic as running away from home?”
“Yes,” Liam and Gwen said in unison.
“You don’t know them,” Gwen said. “Mostly it’s our father, but our mom goes along with him.”
“I wish we were exaggerating,” Liam added. “Puritanical would be a good catch-all term. And Mom’s just flat out a worrywart.”
“You know,” Tim slowly said, “if you two wanted to turn this into an extended working vacation, we’d love for you both to stay here.”
Liam sat back and laughed. “I appreciate it, but I suspect it’s Gee you’re more interested in than me.”
Tim smiled and captured her hand, lacing his fingers through hers as he smiled at her. “Any family of Gwen’s is welcome in our home. Well, except maybe your parents.”
Gwen laughed, heat rising to her face. “You’d get sick of me really fast. I’m a workaholic.”
Tim grinned. “And you don’t think Stoneface is?”
“Who?” Liam asked.
“Jack,” Tim and Gwen said together.
“It’s his nickname,” Tim added. “The past twenty-four hours, he’s been happier than I ever remember seeing him.” He caught and held Gwen’s gaze. “Because of you, babe. And if you think I’m going to let you just walk out of our lives like that, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. Is he serious?
Liam leaned back in his chair, a playful grin on his face. “Well, Gee, looks like we should look into making a move to South Dakota.”
This was too much, too soon. She couldn’t process it, much less deal with it. “Let’s just concentrate on trying to find Amy first. Then we can talk about everything else.”
There wasn’t a lot they could do except keep trying to retrace Amy’s steps. After Tim fixed them a scrumptious lunch, they went to a few more of the local attractions in Amy’s notebook. Tim called Jack but got his voice mail. A few minutes later, he received a text message back.
In depositions all afternoon, sorry. Let’s go out for dinner.
“Well, we’ll have to wait on that angle,” Tim said as he read the text message. “I’m sure once he gets a chance he’ll look into it from his end.”
Jack called Tim later when he left the office. When Tim got off the phone, he gave Gwen a playful swat on the butt. “Go get dressed for dinner, sweetie. We’re all going out.”
“I didn’t bring anything fancy, you know. I wasn’t expecting to go out on dates.”
He smiled and pulled her to him, where he kissed her. “Then maybe tomorrow we need to rectify that, and I’ll take you shopping.”
Liam leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Sis, I’d say you’ve officially got yourself a couple of boyfriends.”
She felt her face redden. “You don’t have to do that, Tim.”
“Oh, yes I do.” He nibbled the side of her neck, weakening her knees despite the fact that Liam was sitting there in the kitchen with them. “We’ve got a hot lady we want to show off.” With that he released her, turning her around and giving her a gentle push in the direction of the spare bedroom.